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Call Me Baby Eva

We spent a long time picking our girl’s name. We bought the requisite baby name book, and plowed through list upon list of names. Complicating the search was my wife’s profession. As a teacher, she has a face associated with so many names, that it became a daunting task. You can’t use this name because she already had one in school. Once through that filter, we only had a few names left. We never arrived at a boys name. Our favorite was already used by a friend of ours. In fact, the default boys name that was our best option has elicited many bitter beer faces when mentioned that I don’t think that we can use it now.

Never the less, it wasn’t an issue since we had a girl. Her name became a rememberance to two grandmother like figures in our lives. Plus, not one student has ever shared that name. We accomplished our goal of being meaningful, but not strange. Beautiful and UNIQUE.

It took one week of daycare to lose the uniqueness.

One of the workers at the daycare shares the same name as Eva. So at daycare, our daughter is Baby Eva.

So, we’ve failed at name uniquness. Is this a bad thing? Why do we try so hard to avoid common names? Is it so we avoid the snide comment “Oh, another D’Brickashaw, don’t you think there are too many D’Brickashaws already?” Are we really concerned about them being in 4th grade and when the teacher says “Benedict” and three boys answer? Do we want people to find us creative, but not one of those kooky creative types that inserts a silent 7 in the middle of the name?

I’m sure for Steph, being a teacher who has to call on kids, uniqueness is important to avoid confusion. If she mumbles, Aiden, Jayden, Caden, Brayden or Hayden might just answer the question. I’m not sure why I want uniqueness, perhaps the creative thing I suppose.

I go to daycare to pick Eva up, and I walk by the toddler room. “Hello Dad”, I hear. “Hi Eva.” This teacher, whom I probably wouldn’t have had a conversation with until Baby Eva made it to her room, is now talking with me because of our common names. Everyday when I leave, I always say bye to Eva. We may have lost our uniqueness, but I’ve made an acquaintence. I can live with that.

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One response

Eva really isn’t that common so don’t beat yourself up about it. We have Arthur and while it’s not completely uncommon, it’s not all that common. In my life, I’ve known only two people named Arthur: one old enough to be my father (and the one ours was named after), and one that was a few years behind me in high school.

I’ve never known anyone named Eva.

And I totally understand Steph’s trepidation with certain names. I got so sick of hearing these supposedly original names that no one could pronounce (Zophyiah, for example)……or the “new” common names (like Aiden, Hayden, Payton, Haven, etc.). You want something that isn’t common but not so unheard of that people can’t pronounce it when they seen it.

Oh, and for the record: Zophyiah is Sofia with a “Z” sound at the beginning.